Former head coach of the Russian national team Vladimir Pluschev explained the reason for the successful performance of Russian players in the National Hockey League (NHL ).
Tampa forward Nikita Kucherov currently ranks second on the season’s top scorers list (23 points), followed by Rangers forward Artemy Panarin (22 points) in third place.
— All of our best NHL hockey players stay at their positions primarily because of their great individual skills. Kucherov, Malkin, Panarin, Ovechkin – these are real professionals, each of whom devoted their lives to sports. But behind this lies another point. All of the above types are a product of the Soviet school and not of the one that exists in Russia today.
Secondly, I wouldn’t say we really produce hockey players like them. The number of our guys in the NHL today is almost half that of the Swedes.
Russia occupies approximately fourth place in terms of the number of representatives in this league. We do not have systematic training for hockey players in our country, and those who have not yet been mentioned, Kaprizov or Tarasenko, are rather piece products.
If we really had a functioning system, the ratio of Russians and Swedes, not to mention Americans and Canadians, would be about 50:50,” Plyushchev said, as quoted by RT.
RT
Source : MatchTV
I’m Emma Smith, a dedicated journalist and avid storyteller. I have been writing for news websites for the past 5 years, reporting on hockey news and delivering in-depth analysis of the sport. In my current role as Author at Athletistic, I write about hockey events from around the world to keep followers up-to-date with what’s happening in the sport.
